IHBAS traces 42 patients who ‘disappeared’

One patient committed suicide a year after returning. Another died in a road accident three years later. At least 10 patients returned to IHBAS for treatment on an outpatient basis. None were re-admitted for treatment, according to the institute. The institute now plans to expand the pilot programme to all the 420 patients in the coming months, the first such exercise by a mental health facility.

For the exercise, doctors randomly selected files of absconding patients from 2009-2013.

“We managed to contact the families of 37 patients on phone. We visited the homes of five patients as their telephone numbers were incorrect or unreachable. Most patients were from Delhi. Three were from Western Uttar Pradesh (Muzaffarnagar, Meerut and Hapur),” Dr Rajesh Kumar, Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the institute, said.

Doctors said they found that most patients had run away from the hospital when they were taken for radiological scans like X-ray or laboratory investigations. “Most of those who ran away were young patients and showing symptoms of the disease,” Kumar said.

Calling it an effort by the hospital to “review and revise its perspective on what might have been a relative blind spot”, IHBAS Director Dr Nimesh Desai said no formal records were found in hospital files of family members complaining about patients’ disappearance.

“From now onwards, when family members get patients admitted, we will inform them that since we are an open mental health facility, there is a possibility of such events. Secondly, when family members visit nursing staff to collect patients’ belongings, we will now record it officially, so we know that a patient has reached home safely,” Dr Desai said.

In the last five years, 420 patients have “disappeared” or gone missing from IHBAS in East Delhi, data provided by the hospital in response to an RTI shows, as reported by Newsline on April 17.

But Dr Desai had said these figures were “misleading”. “For the last 10 years, we have distinguished between the concept of ‘escaped’ and ‘absconding’ patients. For patients sent to us from Tihar jail or by magisterial orders, we use the term ‘escaped’ if they leave during treatment since we are accountable to the authorities concerned and we follow all due legal processes for this category,” he had said.

Dr Desai said the bulk of the patients included in the RTI reply were walk-in, regular patients, who were therefore ‘absconding’ rather than having ‘escaped’.